Suppose you want to label flow lines in your roadway plan, ditch center-line elevations, or the top or bottom of a bank. Conceptually, suppose you want to evaluate grades across an existing site to figure out how to terrace the latest parking lot surface beast. The simple answer: Create an Alignment; Apply a Label Set; Grab the labels; Point the Label References built into a Civil…

Too often our AutoCAD tool user perspective tends to get in the way of productive work. Let’s put the issue in frank terms. People think we use AutoCAD to draw pictures. Well, don’t we? But AutoCAD employs data to create pictures. This is something entirely different. Civil 3D employs an even more structured form of data than raw AutoCAD. I like to call this…

The Civil 3D Data Behind

AutoCAD Civil 3D can be the software surveyors love to hate. Maybe that should read hate to love? Unquestionably, Autodesk immediately messed with the established survey CAD workflows. In truth, they even messed with the core essential meanings of many familiar things like Point, Figure, and Alignment.

Historically, Autodesk also probably took way too long to sort out the…

Go ahead and say it out loud. There be lots of sizzle, hiss, and snake-like sound in that post title. Stomp about a bit in rattlesnake land. Do the same old things. You may miss the magic. Trust me. When you look down at your boot and there’s a mad, hissing snake wrapped around it and his fangs are buried in the boot leather you’re mighty glad you changed your Nikes. Time to change that nappy?